Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Beach Chronicles 5

We woke up this morning to the sound of a little boy's heartbroken sobs. Apparently, the hermit crab which we, against our better judgment, allowed Michael to bring home, had gone to hermit crab heaven. I say "apparently" because he hadn't really. He just wasn't active, and Michael assumed he was dead.

Still, in my research, I heard many say that it is difficult to keep a saltwater hermit crab alive in captivity, so I encouraged our little boy to return "Hermit" to the ocean. We made a big to-do about Hermit's return , and there was much fanfare as the waves swept him out to the deeps beyond. Although I didn't tell my little boy, my research also revealed that even saltwater crabs need some freshwater, so I'm not sure what Hermit's fate will be, but at least his graveyard will be "home" to him.

After our big production, and against our better judgment, we headed down the beach to a tourist trap store that advertised hermit crabs. And we bought two. Because my research shows that hermit crabs are social animals.

It's not like this is our only pet here on the ocean. We also have about 50 tadpoles who made the journey through Podunk County, Georgia, and Middle-of-Nowhere, Alabama, with us. Because I am fascinated by them and didn't want to miss out on their growth and development didn't want the children to miss out on their growth and development in our absence.

So it'll be a full car when we head home on Friday. Until then, we have lots of critters to observe, including the fever (go ahead--look it up) of stingrays that swim along the beach in front of our condo every evening.

Smart thing doing that research. Last year we came home with a tiny turtle (from Alvin's) and then realized he needed quite a bit of care including a large fish tank with proper rocks to sun on, and a heat lamp to be the sun. Oh, and he is going to get big, very big apparently.

But, my son loves turtles for some strange reason. So this is his pet. :-)